A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

I hereby declare that Autumn has finally begun.

As I walked my daughter to school this morning, I could see my breath swirling around infront of me, just as misty as the surrounding fog that threatened to obscure anything further than 100ft away.  Leila asked if it was nearly Christmas… in response, I let out a shudder.

While my brain may slowly be getting to grips with the idea of colder, darker climes… my nails, aren’t.

Clinique’s Really Rio may well be a summer screamer but I’m not ashamed to wear it, whatever the weather!

A pretty peach with a super-glossy finish and a slight jelly-esque quality that makes it look warm and squishy on the nails.  The coverage is a little sheer and you’ll need a few coats to achieve the finish above but it wears beautifully well, longevity is a dream with next to no tip wear, even after four-days.

Really Rio is available to buy on counter and online at clinique.co.uk, priced at £12 for 9ml.  I’ve also spotted a couple of minis on offer for £3-a-piece from directcosmetics.co.uk – bargain!

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When it comes to my current beauty routine, I’m sorry to admit that painting my nails is about as intense as it gets.  I’m still struggling to find “me” underneath all this baby stuff, not that I mind… it’s just that everything else seems so much more… not important per se, but… urgent, at least.  I was able to put aside some beauty and blogging time when Leila was born.  Back then, I lived with Mum and Dad, and Paul wasn’t on a constant deadline… plus, I guess I didn’t have another kid to invest my time laughing with.  It’s been an odd few months… simultaneously both easier and tougher than the first time around.

Anyway… back to the pretty polish.  I’ll save my blatherings, perhaps for another day.

Revlon have recently released a range of gel-effect nail polishes into the UK market.  The shade selection is huge, 30 colours in total alongside a diamond top coat.  There’s a lot of these gel-effect polishes around, jumping on the buzz-word bandwagon, but what do they actually offer above and beyond a normal nail polish?

Well, in this case Revlon promises: brilliant colour, gel-shine and long lasting wear.  But does it deliver?

Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy – #100 Cardshark

The formula, in my opinion, isn’t the easiest to work with.  It’s fairly thin but well-pigmented and has a tendency to pool at the edges if you overload the brush.  Working with thin layers is your best bet, even at the expense of having to apply another coat to achieve an opaque finish.

Having said that, the formula isn’t without merit because it self-levels as it dries, ensuring a neater overall look.  This makes it especially kind to those of us with ridges, flakes, and any other imperfections that may show through a freshly-painted nail.  The finish is lovely, intensely shiny and smooth… in terms of how it looks, there’s no need to add any kind of top-coat.

Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy – #210 Casino Lights

I’ve already mentioned the rich pigmentation delivered by the Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy range and nowhere was this more apparent than in #210 Casino Lights, a lemon yellow that dispenses with the classic yellow-polish-streakiness completely on the third coat.  Yellows are notoriously hard to work with, and this one was easier than most.

As for wear, I can’t comment on how it fares with the addition of the Revlon Diamond Top Coat… but worn naked, they did well.  I reached day 5 with minimal tip wear and no chipping.

Have you tried these yet?

The Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy range is priced at £6.99 a-piece, available insore and online at Boots.com

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Who hasn’t dreamed of creating some makeups of their very own?  Leila and I sometimes spend an afternoon making lipglosses together from vaseline and food dye.  When we’re not doing that, we’re mixing up nail polishes to create some vile frankenpolish, inevitably throwing half a ton of glitter into the mix… just to make sure that it’s completely unwearable.  But boy, it sure is pretty to look at!

Last year, GOSH gave two customers the chance to create their own cosmetics in a competition held over on the brand’s instagram feed.  The two winners were delighted with the opportunity, and who can blame them?  One got to create a lipstick colour, the other… a nail polish shade.

Danielle Graves from Leeds, the nail polish creator, took colour inspiration from one of her son’s toys and transformed the eventual shade into a pretty blue with a subtle shimmer.  Danielle said:

“I was so shocked when I won, I love GOSH and I love Superdrug so to be able to create a make-up colour with them is incredible.  I’m so happy.  It’s great to think that other people liked the colour I picked enough to vote for it, my son loves Monsters Inc. and the picture I submitted is actually a close up of the fur on his favourite teddy bear.  It just screamed summer and bright and wow to me but at the same time reminds me of my little boy.”

It is indeed, a very pretty shade.  The flecks of shimmer give the polish the effect of sunlight on water, like a glistening tropical ocean.  Very summery indeed!  The formula on the shade is good, with two coats delivering adequate coverage and I had no issues with application or a shorter-than-average wear time.

Danielle’s nail polish is priced at £3.99 and is available instore at Superdrug

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You’d be easily forgiven if you thought that Butter London Marbs had been released alongside one of the brand’s Winter collections… after all, we’re pretty used to seeing golden metallics shine at Christmas.  But no, in their usual “sod what the rest of the industry are doing” kinda way, Butter London saw fit to release this golden wonder last Summer and it just about works.

Although obviously a rather brash yellow-gold in hue, there’s a certain amount of bronziness to it that makes you appreciate how well it would work with a sunkissed tan.  Something my milk-bottle skin is sadly, unlikely to realise this Summer.

The finish is in fact, startlingly bright with an incredible metallic foil that gives an almost reflective-like quality to the finished product.  I’d generally expect anything so full of shine to be unforgiving over nail ridges but this one manages to disguise the various bumps and peels across my nail beds.

Summer, winter… whatever the season, Marbs is probably the best gold polish I own, especially when it comes to delivering a fully opaque finish in a quick and simple two coats.

Butter London Marbs is priced at £11.95 and available to buy online from powderrooms.com

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As much as I admire a pretty metallic nail polish, they can be the devil for revealing flaws across the nail bed.  Champers from Butter London is no exception and it rudely broadcast my peeling index nail (on the other hand) to all and sundry.

When a polish leaves you feeling so exposed, it can be hard to muster much love for it but despite this, Champers has something very special working for it in its favour.

It’s simply a bloody beautiful shade that would suit every skintone.

It’s described as a rose-gold metallic shimmer…. and in my opinion, pushes the description boundaries a little with the “rose gold”.  I don’t think it’s quite warm enough to qualify and has a subtle silver flash that contradicts the overall impression… of course, this is great if you struggle with warmer tones against your skin but I just wouldn’t quite put this one into the obvious rose gold category.

Especially not when you compare it to something like Butter London’s incredibly beautiful pink/gold combo that is Rosie Lee for example.

Application was good and the polish needed a maximum of three coats to achieve full opacity and removal was generously easy considering the micro particles of shimmer that run through the shade.

Butter London Champers is priced at £11.95 and available to buy online from www.powderrooms.com

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I’m nothing if not eternally late to the party. Not in a fashionable manner you understand, more of an “everyone’s gone home now” kinda way.

Incase you hadn’t guessed, this is my first A-England polish purchase.  The reason that I didn’t jump on the wagon a couple of years ago was down to an honest fear of not being able to control my spends.  Infact, even now… hype long-gone, I can still feel the pull back to the website for more.  MOAR I tell you!

Ascalon is an understated holographic, understated in a prettily scattered way.  Infact, as a bonafide holo-whore… my favourite thing about this shade is more to do with the lilac duochrome that flashes across the nail bed and not the holographic effect at all.  Application was nice and smooth, happily complete in two coats.

These darker, cool-toned holos are my favourite… not particularly seasonal but so, so beautifully chic.  What’s your favourite A-England shade?

A-England Ascalon is priced at £9.00 and available to purchase online from a-england.co.uk

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Very, very tentatively am I moving into some proper Spring nail colours.  I know it’s like, April already and most of you are being all fashion-forward with your neons but me, well… I’m just a bit of a 21st century yokel.  You’ll have to let me bump along with the times at my own slow pace.

Deborah Lippmann’s Daytripper is the perfect example of my favourite. shade. ever. (other than taupe).  It’s what I like to call “Guava”, a softer version of coral… a version of coral that’s more forgiving to my pasty, pale pink skintone.  It doesn’t scream, it just siren-songs you into a gentle Summery submission.

Aside from the obvious fanaticism I have over the shade “guava”, this version of the shade on my fingertips sings even more temptingly thanks to it’s super-glassy finish.  That’s no top-coat on display there folks, this one is so shiny, you’ll have no need to carry a mirror around with you.  The above photo shows three coats because I hate a VNL (visible nail line).  If you don’t mind a little sheerness in your polish, this one has that pretty semi-translucent hard boiled sweet thing going on after two coats.  Me, I just like all out opacity.

Application is good, wear is good… and to be honest, so it should be from the premium brand.  I think I like their cremes even better than their notorious glitters!

Deborah Lippmann Daytripper retails at £16.00 for 15ml and is available to buy online from harrods.com and lookfantastic.com (where shipping is also gratis).

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Shall we have something a little more demure today? All this holographic sparkle is lush n’ all but not always the most work-appropriate of choices.  If you are looking for the kind of polish that is possibly more work-appropriate than even you are, look no further than this Suqqu Spring release…

SUQQU Nail Color R EX05 Shirakoucha is so demure and understated that it makes Emma Watson look like Miley Cyrus.  This pale, creamy nude is completely and utterly neutral, like the milkiest tea-latte in the coffee-shop.

It’s a little sheer on the first coat and needs a full 2 or even 3 coats to build up to opacity and you only get a rather laughable 5ml for your money here, so if you’re wearing this frequently as part of your nail wardrobe, you’ll get through a bottle sharpish.

That aside, it’s a lovely polish to work with, quick-drying and glossy… I’m on day 3 of wear and it still looks as good as new.

SUQQU Nail Color R EX05 Shirakoucha is priced at £18.00 and available to buy on counter at Selfridges while stocks last.

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Hands up who had a bloody lovely weekend?!

ME! I did!

Casa Lipglossiping is finally beginning to shake the lurgy that had taken hold with a vice-like grip for the past fortnight.  Just a “cold”, said the Doctor… but honestly one of the worst I’ve known in my time, our noses were unaffected but the coughing… oh boy, the coughing!  If anyone knows how long broken blood vessels in the eye take to heal, Vampira here would like to know the answer please.  I look like I’m on a quest for blood-lust and it’s not very attractive!

What is rather attractive though, is my latest installment in my mini-series of Layla Cosmetics nail polishes…

Cloudy Violet.  What a corker!  And a little better-lasting than the others I’ve featured so far, hell… I got a full three-days out of this one before it chipped.  I know, right?!  Truth be told, I’m sure I could get a bit longer out of all the Layla’s if I used a base coat… something like the LUMOS or CND’s Stickey… but I don’t really do basecoats, I don’t normally need to.  This one was another three-coater that needed a top-coat to retain the shine.

Cloudy Violet is a lovely blue-toned purple with a myriad of holographic linear sparkle.  Not a brain-dazzlingly, in-yer-face holo but not as subtle as the Catherine Arley’s tend to be.

There are seven of these left on Amazon now, priced at £5.25 each, another recommended purchase from me!

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A dark brown holographic? This is stuff of my dreams!

It’s pretty similar to the first Layla Cosmetics Holo I posted from my recent haul: Misty Blush, albeit a little less red-toned… if you’re a fan of the base shade, get both… if not, it’s quite hard to choose between them.  I had guessed that they’d be close-enough for me not to need to buy both but I love these darker holographics, so I just couldn’t walk away with only one.

Application once again, needs three coats to ensure no patchiness but each coat dries quickly and didn’t give me any major issues.  I’m sorry for the (almost daily) Layla spam but I’m taking massive advantage of the sunshine while it lasts!

Layla Coffee Love Hologram Effect Nail Polish is priced at £5.32 and available to buy online from amazon.co.uk

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I can’t stop showing these new Layla polishes off, I’m sorry.  Everytime I see a chink of direct sunlight, peeking through the shadows, I’m out on the balcony with my camera desperately trying to capture the holographic sparkle like a woman possessed.  My neighbours must think I’m a bonfide “speshul” case as I angle my hand this way and that to capture the brightness between the clouds.

Shock Pink is a cheerful magenta that’s pretty true to its name… bright enough not to be babyish but in the shade it’s subtle enough not to be obnoxiously “pink”.  This multicoloured beauty takes on a real golden hue in the sunlight, alongside the rainbow holo effect that’s a little less intense than the one I showed you the other day.  Application was a little kinder this time but still needed a total of three coats… I think this may be the sacrifice one has to make for a great (but inexpensive) holographic.

Wear was about 48hrs before I got a chip from one of the tips…. top-coat the crap out of it.

There’s currently only 8 left in stock of the Layla Shock Pink on Amazon.co.uk, priced at £5.09 so get your skates on if you’re interested!

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My little haul of cheap Layla Cosmetics Nail Polishes arrived from Amazon on Saturday morning, and like a kid in a multi-coloured, holographic candy store, I couldn’t wait to paint myself up.  We’ve been especially blessed with the weather this weekend too… isn’t it the warmest it’s been since last October or something?  Anyway… ultimately, this meant sunshine… and nothing appreciates a bit of sunshine more than a holographic nail polish.

Eeny, meeny, miney, mo… went I…

…I settled for Layla Cosmetics Misty Blush as my first NOTD.

Isn’t she a beauty?  If my cuticles weren’t so ravaged at the moment, I’d have given you a close-up of the holographic intensity with my Canon point & shoot but I’m afraid this was as close as my vanity would allow me to get.  Application wasn’t brilliant, but it wasn’t too dreadful… the polish is pretty thin and had a tendency to “flick” specks about during application – perhaps more the fault of my virus-ridden, shaking body – but please don’t apply this anywhere near a white carpet just incase.  It took three coats to reach full opacity and definitely needs a top-coat as it dries pretty matte.

Wear also isn’t amazing… I have a tiny chip one day later, I don’t usually get any chips though… I’m a tip-wear girl, chips… barely ever.

Ultimately, I still love it.  I can’t help it.  Perhaps I’m a bit seduced by the sunshine, by how it sparkles… I think I’m willing to forgive it more than most just because it’s so damn beautiful.

Layla Cosmetics Misty Blush NOTD is available to buy online at amazon.co.uk, priced at £5.21

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